Academy Award®-nominated production designer Ida Random, best known for her work on Rain Man,The Big Chill and Silverado, will receive the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) Lifetime Achievement Award at the 26th Annual ADG Awards. The awards ceremony returns to a live event on Saturday, March 5, 2022, at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown in the Wilshire Grand Ballroom. The award will honor Random’s exceptional spectrum of distinctive designs for an array of films created over four decades. This is the third of four Lifetime Achievement Awards to be announced by the Art Directors Guild.
“The Art Directors Guild is honored to name Ida Random the recipient of its Lifetime Achievement award for 2022. Random has worked as a prolific production designer with some of the most accomplished directors of our time–James L. Brooks, Kevin Costner, Lawrence Kasdan, Barry Levinson, Justin Lin–on iconic films that span a vast array of genres and styles. From the seminal western Silverado to the emotionally nuanced Rain Man, to the action franchise The Fast and the Furious, the astonishing range and scale of Ida Random’s trailblazing career can only be characterized as breathtaking,” said Mark Worthington, Art Directors Council chair.
Random’s career spanned 42 years and over 30 films, highlighted by an Academy Award nomination for Rain Man in 1988. Some of the other projects she has worked on also include highly acclaimed films like The War of The Roses, Hoffa, Body Double, Wyatt Earp, The Postman, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Throw Momma From the Train, Chasing Mavericks and the remake of Roots TV miniseries, to name a few.
Random is a trailblazer in a male-dominated industry whose drive to succeed helped pave the way for many aspiring women designers to follow. Who could have known that, as a young woman, her training as a painter and master of color and light would serve her so well in the high-pressure world of filmmaking. Early in her career she viewed the process of filmmaking as “making a painting,” a unique vision that so many learned to trust and admire.
Born in the small town of Johnstone, Scotland, Random always knew she wanted to be an artist. That would be her destiny in Hollywood whether she realized it then or not. She landed a job in The Hollywood Reporter‘s art department and it was here she began fulfilling her dreams of production design. Random was able to take on small art department jobs including a TV movie for Beau Bridges. She met production designer Richard Sylbert, who guided her to continue her education and she learned how to draft. British production designer Terry Marsh gave Random her first job as a set designer on the film Frisco Kid. Oscar-winning production designer Stephen Grimes hired her as his assistant art director for the films Urban Cowboy and On Golden Pond.
Her big break came when Lawrence Kasdan hired her as production designer on The Big Chill. She would team up with Kasdan on two more films–Silverado and Wyatt Earp–both with ambitious builds requiring entire towns to be erected in the middle of New Mexico’s high desert. The town of Silverado became known as the Cook Movie Ranch Set, and from 1985 through the 2000s, the town was rented to dozens of other productions.
The ADG Awards honor excellence in production design in theatrical motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos and animated feature films. Producer of the 2022 ADG Awards is art director Michael Allen Glover, ADG (The Alienist, Solos and Station Eleven). Joining the team as stage designer is Emmy-winning production designer Brian J. Stonestreet, ADG (Golden Globes, Grammy Awards, Billboard Awards). Nelson Coates, ADG, is ADG president.
As previously announced, director Denis Villeneuve (Dune) will receive the William Cameron Menzies Award. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) will receive the Cinematic Imagery Award. The ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts. Scenic artists Michael and Denise Okuda, best known for their creative lead designs for the Star Trek franchise, will receive the award from the Scenic, Title & Graphic Artists (STG). Set designer/art director Ann Harris, will be honored from the Set Designers & Model Makers Council (SDMM) for her more than 60 movie and television design credits including Edward Scissorhands and Schindler’s List. The fourth honoree from the ADG Illustrators & Matte Artists Council (IMA) will be announced presently.
ADG Awards are open only to productions when made within the U.S. by producers signatory to the IATSE agreement. Foreign entries are acceptable without restrictions.
